Women get the vote - UK Parliament Women get the vote Women and the Lords Women get the vote During 1916-1917, the House of Commons Speaker, James William Lowther, chaired a conference on electoral reform which recommended limited women's suffrage. Influential consideration Only 58% of the adult male population was eligible to vote before 1918. An influential consideration, in addition to the suffrage movement and the growth of the Labour Party, was the fact that only men who had been resident in the country for 12 months prior to a general election were entitled to vote. This effectively disenfranchised a large number of troops who had been serving overseas in the war. With a general election imminent, politicians were persuaded to extend the vote to all men and some women at long last. Representation of the People Act 1918 In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criteria, it only represented 40 per cent of the total population of women in the UK.

The same act abolished property and other restrictions for men, and extended the vote to all men over the age of 21. Additionally, men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The electorate increased from eight to 21 million, but there was still huge inequality between women and men. Equal Franchise Act 1928 It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million. Winning the Vote for Women Around the World - Timeline International Woman Suffrage Timeline Winning the Vote for Women Around the World Progress of states and nations with woman suffrage. Courtesy Library of Congress. Original published in Harper's Magazine, April 25, 1908. By Jone Johnson Lewis Updated April 01, 2016. When did various nations give all women the right to vote? Many granted suffrage in steps -- some locales gave the vote for local elections first, or some racial or ethnic groups were excluded until later.

Often, the right to stand for election and the right to vote were given at separate times. "Full suffrage" means that all groups of women were included, and could both vote and run for any office. This list was compiled from many online and print resources; I've listed a few references for those who want more information. Also see the state-by-state timeline and the women's suffrage events timeline . 1850-1879 1851: Prussian law forbids women from joining political parties or attending meetings where politics is discussed. 1869: Britain grants unmarried women who are householders the right to vote in local elections 1862/3: Some Swedish women gain voting rights in local elections. 1880-1899 1881: Some Scottish women get the right to vote in local elections. continue reading below our video 10 Facts About the Titanic That You Don't Know 1893: New Zealand grants equal voting rights to women. 1894: The United Kingdom expands women's voting rights to married women in local but not national elections. 1895: South Australian women gain voting rights.

1899: Western Australian women were granted voting rights. 1900-1909 1901: Women in Australia get the vote, with some restrictions. 1902: Women in New South Wales get the vote. 1902: Australia grants more voting rights to women. 1906: Finland adopts woman suffrage. 1907: Women in Norway are permitted to stand for election. 1908: Women in Denmark some women granted local voting rights. 1908: Victoria, Australia, grants women voting rights. 1909: Sweden grants vote in municipal elections to all women. 1910-1919 1913: Norway adopts full woman suffrage. 1915: Women get the vote in Denmark and Iceland. 1916: Canadian women in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan get the vote. 1917: When the Russian Czar is toppled, the Provisional Government grants universal suffrage with equality for women; later the new Soviet Russian constitution includes full suffrage to women. 1917: Women in the Netherlands are granted the right to stand for election.

1918: The United Kingdom gives a full vote to some women -- over 30, with property qualifications or a UK university degree -- and to all men age 21 and older. 1918: Canada gives women the vote in most provinces by federal law. Quebec is not included. Native women were not included. 1918: Germany grants women the vote. 1918: Austria adopts woman suffrage. 1918: Women given full suffrage in Latvia, Poland, Estonia, and Latvia. 1918: Russian Federation gives women the right to vote. 1921: Azerbaijan grants woman suffrage. (Sometimes given as 1921 or 1917.) 1918: Women granted limited voting rights in Ireland. 1919: Netherlands gives women the vote. 1919: Woman suffrage is granted in Belarus, Luxembourg and Ukraine. 1919: Women in Belgium granted right to vote. 1919: New Zealand allows women to stand for election. 1919: Sweden grants suffrage with some restrictions.

1920-1929 1920: On August 26 , a constitutional amendment is adopted when the state of Tennessee ratifies it, granting full woman suffrage in all states of the United States. (For more on woman suffrage state-by-state, see the American Woman Suffrage Timeline .) 1920: Woman suffrage is granted in Albania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 1920: Canadian women get the right to stand for election (but not for all offices - see 1929 below). 1921: Sweden gives women voting rights with some restrictions. 1921: Armenia grants woman suffrage. 1921: Lithuania grants woman suffrage. 1921: Belgium grants women the right to stand for election. 1922: Irish Free State, separating from the UK, gives equal voting rights to women. 1922: Burma grants women voting rights. 1924: Mongolia, Saint Lucia and Tajikistan give suffrage to women. 1924: Kazakstan gives limited voting rights to women. 1925: Italy grants limited voting rights to women.

1927: Turkmenistan grants woman suffrage. 1928: The United Kingdom grants full equal voting rights to women. 1928: Guyana grants woman suffrage. 1928: Ireland (as part of the UK) expands women's suffrage rights. 1929: Ecuador grants suffrage, Romania grants limited suffrage. 1929: Women found to be " persons " in Canada and therefore able to become members of the Senate. 1930-1939 1930: White women granted suffrage in South Africa. 1930: Turkey grants women the vote. 1931: Women get full suffrage in Spain and Sri Lanka . 1931: Chile and Portugal grant suffrage with some restrictions. 1932: Uruguay, Thailand and Maldives jump on the woman suffrage bandwagon. 1934: Cuba and Brazil adopt woman suffrage. 1934: Turkish women are able to stand for election. 1934: Portugal grants woman suffrage, with some restrictions. 1935: Women gain right to vote in Myanmar. 1937: The Philippines grants women full suffrage.

1938: Women get the vote in Bolivia. 1938: Uzbekistan grants full suffrage to women. 1939: El Salvador grants voting rights to women. 1940-1949 1940: Women of Quebec are granted voting rights. 1941: Panama grants limited voting rights to women. 1942: Women gain full suffrage in the Dominican Republic . 1944: Bulgaria, France and Jamaica grant suffrage to women. 1945: Croatia, Indonesia, Italy, Hungary, Japan (with restrictions), Yugoslavia, Senegal and Ireland enact woman suffrage. 1945: Guyana allows women to stand for election. 1946: Woman suffrage adopted in Palestine, Kenya, Liberia, Cameroon, Korea, Guatemala, Panama (with restrictions), Romania (with restrictions), Venezuela, Yugoslavia and Vietnam. 1946: Women allowed to stand for election in Myanmar. 1947: Bulgaria, Malta, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore and Argentina extend suffrage to women. 1947: Japan extends suffrage, but still retains some restrictions. 1947: Mexico grants the vote to women at the municipal level.

1948: Israel, Iraq, Korea, Niger and Surinam adopt woman suffrage. 1948: Belgium, which previously granted the vote to women, establishes suffrage with a few restrictions for women. 1949: Bosnia and Herzegovina grant woman suffrage. 1949: China and Costa Rica give women the vote. 1949: Women gain full suffrage in Chile but most vote separately from men. 1949: Syrian Arab Republic gives the vote to women. 1949/1950: India grants woman suffrage. 1950-1959 1950: Haiti and Barbados adopt woman suffrage. 1950: Canada grants full suffrage, extending the vote to some women (and men) previously not included, still excluding Native women. 1951: Antigua, Nepal and Grenada give women the vote. 1952: Covenant on Political Rights of Women enacted by the United Nations, calling for women's right to vote and right to stand for elections. 1952: Greece, Lebanon and Bolivia (with restrictions) extend suffrage to women.

1953: Mexico grants women the right to stand for election. and to vote in national elections. 1953: Hungary and Guyana give voting rights to women. 1953: Bhutan and the Syrian Arab Republic establish full woman suffrage. 1954: Ghana, Colombia and Belize grant woman suffrage. 1955: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Peru, Honduras and Nicaragua adopt woman suffrage. 1956: Women given suffrage in Egypt, Somalia, Comoros, Mauritius, Mali and Benin. 1956: Pakistani women gain right to vote in national elections. 1957: Malaysia extends suffrage to women. 1957: Zimbabwe grants women the vote. 1959: Madagascar and Tanzania give suffrage to women. 1959: San Marino permits women to vote. 1960-1969 1960: Women of Cyprus, Gambia and Tonga get suffrage. 1960: Canadian women win full rights to stand for election, as Native women are also included. 1961: Burundi, Malawy, Paraguay, Rwanda and Sierra Leone adopt woman suffrage.

1961: Women in the Bahamas gain suffrage, with limits. 1961: Women in El Salvador are permitted to stand for election. 1962: Algeria, Monaco, Uganda and Zambia adopts woman suffrage. 1962: Australia adopts full woman suffrage (a few restrictions remain). 1963: Women in Morocco, Congo, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kenya gain suffrage. 1964: Sudan adopts woman suffrage. 1964: The Bahamas adopts full suffrage with restrictions. 1965: Women gain full suffrage in Afghanistan, Botswana and Lesotho. 1967: Ecuador adopts full suffrage with a few restrictions. 1968: Full woman suffrage adopted in Swaziland. 1970-1979 1970: Yemen adopts full suffrage. 1970: Andorra permits women to vote. 1971: Switzerland adopts woman suffrage, and the United States lowers the voting age for both men and women to eighteen. 1972: Bangladesh grants woman suffrage. 1973: Full suffrage granted to women in Bahrain.

1973: Women permitted to stand for election in Andover and San Marino. 1974: Jordan and the Solomon Islands extend suffrage to women. 1975: Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique give suffrage to women. 1976: Portugal adopts full woman suffrage with a few restrictions. 1978: The Republic of Moldova adopts full suffrage with a few restrictions. 1978: Women in Zimbabwe are able to stand for election. 1979: Women in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia gain full suffrage rights. 1980-1989 1980: Iran gives women the vote. 1984: Full suffrage granted to women of Liechtenstein. 1984: In South Africa, voting rights are extended to Coloureds and Indians. 1986: Central African Republic adopts woman suffrage. 1990-1999 1990: Samoan women gain full suffrage. 1994: Kazakhstan grants women full suffrage. 1994: Black women gain full suffrage in South Africa.

2000- 2005: Kuwaiti Parliament grants women of Kuwait full suffrage. ______ I've cross-checked this list where possible, but there may be errors. If you've got a correction, please send a reference , preferably on the Net. Text copyright Jone Johnson Lewis More on this topic: BBC - Higher Bitesize History - Why women got the vote : Revision, Page2 Home > History > British suffrage movement > Why women got the vote History Why women got the vote Page Next Why some women gained the vote in 1918 The Representation of People Act became law in February 1918. From that point on women over 30, who were occupiers of property or married to occupiers, were entitled to vote. This was seen as a major success for women's suffrage and was also popular with the general public. The Act was not such a success for women under 30. They would have to wait another 10 years before they received the same rights. The success, albeit limited, of women's suffrage in 1918 can be attributed to a number of factors.

War work The remarkable success of the thousands of women who entered the workplace to do the jobs usually done by men won them considerable respect and admiration. Commonly referred to as the 'weaker sex', women had proved themselves to be every bit the equal of men. Trends towards democratic reform From the turn of the nineteenth century, political parties such as the Liberals and Labour favoured extending the franchise to sections of the population that were excluded at the time. Women were one such section. Before the war started the issue had been debated in Parliament and there was growing support for granting women the vote. Political recognition of the important role women played during the war further strengthened their case. Historians still debate which factors were more or less important. The cumulative effect was the recognition of women's political rights in the Representation of People Act. It ought to be borne in mind, though, that this was limited female franchise. Full adult suffrage was not achieved until Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government passed the Equal Franchise Bill in 1928. From that date, all adults regardless of gender were entitled to the vote once they reached 21 years of age.

Page Women and the vote - UK Parliament Women and the vote Birmingham Case Study Women and the vote Before 1918 no women were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. In the early 20th century there were two main groups active in the campaign for women's suffrage, a term used to describe the right to vote. These two groups were the 'suffragists' who campaigned using peaceful methods such as lobbying, and the 'suffragettes' who were determined to win the right to vote for women by any means. Their militant campaigning sometimes included unlawful and violent acts which attracted much publicity. Dr Sarah Richardson discusses the 1896 women's suffrage petition and the Special Appeal to Parliament that was signed by over 257,000 people. BBC - GCSE Bitesize - Votes for women Votes for women Why did women get the vote? The Suffragettes At the time, the Suffragettes caused a lot of anger and it has been argued that they lost support for the cause. Certainly, women had not been given the vote by 1914, even after a lot of Suffragette violence.

However, some historians argue that, although they could not be seen to give in to Suffragette violence, politicians could not face a return to Suffragette violence after the war, and that is why they gave women the vote. The War During the war, women served the nation and did men's work in many ways. When they were given the vote in 1918, almost every person who supported the motion in Parliament said that they deserved it because of their conduct during the war - they had proved that they could go to war' with the men. The problem with this argument is that only women who were householders over the age of 30 (6 million women) got the vote in 1918; women over 21 did not get the vote until 1928. Yet the 1918 Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men over the age of 21 so the war did not bring women equality. Sylvia Pankhurst In June 1914, she famously took a delegation of working class women to lobby Prime Minister Asquith who did not think that working class women were intelligent enough to have the vote.

This proved to Asquith that working class women were intelligent enough to vote. The Suffragists Some historians argue that the long-term persuasion of the Suffragists won the vote. In 1916, Lloyd George, who supported women's suffrage, replaced Asquith as prime minister, and many pro-suffrage MPs who had been young men before 1914 now held influential places in the government. So the women won by patient persuasion, after all. Page: The National Archives | Exhibitions | Citizenship | Struggle for democracy Document | Transcript Pressure for reform During the late 18th century and the early 19th century, pressure for parliamentary reform grew rapidly. Some of it came from men who already had a large say in how Britain was run: country gentlemen angry about the use of patronage at Westminster, or manufacturers and businessmen keen to win political influence to match their economic power. However, the issue of parliamentary reform reached a wider audience, particularly after the French Revolution . Influenced by works such as Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1791-2), radical reformers demanded that all men be given the right to vote.

Reform groups such as the Sheffield Corresponding Society (founded in December 1791) and the London Corresponding Society (founded in January 1791) were committed to universal 'manhood' (i.e. adult male) suffrage . Two decades later, the radical public speaker Henry Hunt spoke at numerous political meetings on the same theme. During August 1819, at one such gathering in St Peter's Field, Manchester, local yeomanry attacked the crowd, killing 11 people. After the 'Peterloo Massacre', as this incident became known in radical circles, the government passed a series of repressive measures, and parliamentary reform still seemed a distant prospect. The Peterloo Massacre, 1819 Document | Transcript The Reform Acts The three parliamentary reform Acts introduced in 19th-century Britain (in 1832, 1867 and 1884 respectively) satisfied moderate reformers rather than radicals. The Prime Minister, Lord Grey, supported reform to 'prevent the necessity of revolution' and was responsible for the first (or 'Great') Reform Act of 1832.

However, the Act gave the vote in towns only to men who occupied property with an annual value of £10, which excluded six adult males out of seven from the voting process. The Tory politician Lord Derby described the second Reform Act (1867) as 'a leap in the dark'. And yet only two in every five Englishmen had the vote in 1870. Even the third Reform Act (1884) - which enfranchised all male house owners in both urban and rural areas and added 6 million people to the voting registers - fell some way short of introducing universal manhood suffrage. Third Reform Act: Document (252k) | Transcript Campaigns for universal suffrage Radical reformers pressed for more extensive parliamentary reform throughout the 19th century. The six-point programme of the Chartists included demands for universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and voting by secret ballot. During the 1830s and 1840s, when Chartism was at its most influential, meetings to discuss 'constitutional reform' took place in towns and cities across Britain.

In the mid 1860s the Reform League - though less clearly committed to universal suffrage than the Chartists had been - also mobilised support outside Parliament for electoral reform. Throughout this period, election campaigns were sometimes disrupted by unrest and rioting. Reform League poster, 1867 Document | Transcript Conclusions For many people, 19th-century parliamentary reform was a disappointment because political power was still left in the hands of the aristocracy and the middle classes. Universal suffrage, with voting rights for women (though not for those under 30), did not arrive in Britain until February 1918. By the time of the third Reform Act in 1884, Britain was less democratic than many other countries in Europe. The changes made in the British political system between 1832 and 1884 were nevertheless important. The electorate increased substantially in size from approximately 366,000 in England and Wales in 1831 to slightly fewer than 8 million in 1885. Parliamentary seats were redistributed to give greater weight to larger towns and cities.

Also, the Ballot Act of 1872, which introduced secret ballots, made it far more difficult for voters to be bribed or intimidated. Bribery at Tamworth elections, 1854 Document (255k) | Transcript Ballot regulations, Dover, 1872 Document (164k) | Transcript Moreover, Britain - unlike much of continental Europe in the 19th century - managed to introduce reform without revolution. This achievement contributed greatly to Britain's political stability in the 20th century. General History of Women’s Suffrage in Britain | The Independent General History of Women’s Suffrage in Britain Monday 27 May 2013 23:01 BST Click to follow The Independent Online This mostly covers events of the 20th century. One of the most important aspects of women’s suffrage in Britain was the sheer number of organisations established in favour of women’s suffrage and the factionalised nature of the movement. Although diversity of opinion tended to be in action (pacifist vs.

militant), rather than party allegiance (Fawcett said “women’s suffrage had never been a party question”), many groups in favour of women’s suffrage were also politically aligned to certain parties, or other campaigns. Both Parliament UK and the British Library claim that there were seventeen societies in favour of suffrage for women that came together in the late 19th century to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Parliament UK claims they united in 1897, the British Library claims 1887, although this appears to be an error on the part of the British Library website, as all other sources consulted say 1897. Parliament UK also claims that “by 1913 nearly five hundred regional suffrage societies had joined, making the NUWSS a most influential alliance.” The following list I have compiled gives a good guidance as to the vast number of groups in support of (if not solely dedicated to) women’s suffrage in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century. Below are the founding dates of some of the more prominent of these groups.

In 1851, the Sheffield Female Political Association was formed and brought a petition in support of enfranchising women to the House of Lords In 1865, the Kensington Society was founded as a discussion space for supporters of enfranchising women In 1867, the Manchester Suffrage Committee was founded (a precedent for Manchester’s pivotal role in the suffrage movement) Also in 1867, the Kensington Society became the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage In 1871/2 the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage was established In 1883, the Primrose League (a Conservative group) were established In 1886 the Women’s Liberal Federation was formed In 1889, the Women’s Franchise League was formed In 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was established (three years later their leader would be Millicent Garret Fawcett) In 1903, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed by Emmeline Pankhurst In 1906, the National Federation of Women Workers is established

 Interestingly, Millicent Garrett Fawcett cites party-affiliated women’s suffrage organisations (such as the Primrose League and the Women’s Liberal Federation) as essential to the fight to enfranchise women: “the organised political work of women has grown since 1884, and has become so valuable that none of the parties can afford to do without it or to alienate it.” It is also important to note that women’s suffrage in Britain did not leap from no voting rights at all to full suffrage, but that there were many bills taken to parliament and many small gains ahead of the 1918 declaration of suffrage for women, and then the declaration of full suffrage for women in 1928.

These included: The year 1880 saw suffrage granted to women on the Isle of Man, at first to women “freeholders” and then, a few years’ later, extended to include women “householders”. At the 1884 carrying of the Reform Bill, efforts were made to include women’s suffrage in the extension of franchise to agricultural labourers. However, it was rejected, although notably not by a unanimous ‘no’ from the House: although Fawcett calls it a “crushing defeat”, it may surprise people today to learn that it lost by 135 votes to 271. A petition of 37,000 signatures demanding the enfranchisement of women, which was taken to parliament by a group of women’s textile workers from Northern counties of England in 1902 In 1907 the Qualification of Women Act rules that women can be elected to the positions of mayor, and onto borough and county councils Prominent aspects of the fight for women’s suffrage in Britain Suffragists and Suffragettes The Suffragists and the Suffragettes are two very different, and often very divided movements.

The suffragists was the broader term referring to the supporters of suffrage for women, more specifically the members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), formed in 1897 and led for the majority by Millicent Garrett Fawcett. NUWSS aimed to achieve enfranchisement for women by peaceful and legal means, such as bringing petitions and Bills to parliament, and distributing literature for their Cause. NUWSS was growing constantly, bringing in large membership figures, but in 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst, frustrated at the lack of progress made in getting women the vote, along with her daughters Sylvia, Christabel and Adela, established the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the members of which became known as the suffragettes (around 1906, after a Daily Mail article coined the phrase). Dora Montefiore noted that the WSPU “revolted against the inertia and conventionalism which seemed to have fastened upon...

the NUWSS”, and certainly its aims were to employ more militant, public, and illegal tactics, although moreso after 1905 when it was clear media interest in the fight for suffrage was waning. Their motto was ‘Deeds not Words’, and, unlike the majority of other groups in support of women’s suffrage, they refused to join NUWSS. They also strived for women to be able to vote on the same par with men, as opposed to full unconditional suffrage for women. Ada Nield Chew wrote to The Clarion in 1904, criticising this policy, because “the entire class of wealthy women would be enfranchised, that the great body of working women, married or single, would be voteless still”, but to many suffragettes it was simply the only realistic aim. It was at a meeting in October 1905, during which Christabel and Annie Kenney repeatedly shouted ‘will the Liberal government give votes to women?’ over the top of a speech by Sir Edward Grey, then assaulted police officers when asked to leave, that the first arrests were made in the name of suffrage for women.

There were great issues of class within WSPU, for, although they worked in conjunction with the Independent Labour Party, it has been noted that (increasingly under Christabel’s leadership) the movement found Cause with middle class, rather than working class women. Again, it is important to note the idea that they fought for equal votes to that of men, who had themselves yet to receive full suffrage, and it was a deeply class-ridden issue. The Pankhursts The founders of WSPU and by far the most famed of all women working towards suffrage in the 19th and 20th century were Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, particularly Christabel and Syliva. From these women come many of the best first-hand accounts of the movement, two of which are cited in this research. Leadership was an important issue in WSPU, dictating their stance, militant actions and publications at the time (for example, Christabel’s leadership saw their publication The Suffragette lauding the advantages of secret arson – although the militant nature of WSPU meant Christabel’s leadership was plagued by freelance militancy she struggled to control).

The Pankhursts suffered a family split in 1913, when Adela and Sylvia were dismissed from WSPU, Sylvia for her participation in the East London Federation of Suffragettes. This rift was never solved, with Emmeline even publicly declaring that she “strongly repudiate[d]” Sylvia’s political actions. Hunger Striking and Force Feeding During their imprisonments, suffragettes underwent hunger strikes in protest. The iron resolution of the women during the hunger strikes was renowned, even though delicious and often quite decadent food (“food such as I had never before seen”) was brought to and left in the cell with the prisoners to tempt them. Prisoners would lose serious amounts of weight in prison (Davison claimed she “lost 1½ stone” after 124 hours of fasting during one of her imprisonments). The government’s response to these hunger strikes was to force feed the prisoners; a practice of which, admittedly, I did not realise the full “barbaric” and brutal nature until this research.

Indeed, Christabel Pankhurst said that, “from the moment that women had consented to prison, hunger-strikes, and forcible feeding as the price of the vote, the vote really was theirs”. Morley and Stanley, Davison’s biographers rightly point out that forcible feeding was so awful that “anyone who has read a description of forcible feeding by one of the women who underwent it, such as Sylvia Pankhurst’s well-known account, and has any empathy or imagination at all, will reject with disgust the government’s argument that forcible feeding was not dangerous and was carried out for caring reasons and in a caring spirit only.” Emily Davison’s “suicide attempt” in the Holloway prison was known to have been enacted in the hope of escaping forcible feeding, and, having read various accounts of the horror of having a “steel or a wooden gag” forced into the mouth so that one’s jaws were “forced painfully wide”, a large tube put down your throat and food poured down it (which many vomited back up), ideas of this being some sort of extreme or unbalanced action vanish (C. Pankhurst).

Perhaps the most famous account of the force feeding was written by Sylvia Pankhurst, an extract of which reads as follows; “My gums, when they prised them open, were always sore and bleeding, with bits of loose, jagged flesh... sometimes the tube was coughed up three or four times before they finally got it down. Sometimes, but not often – I was generally too much agitated by then – I felt the tube go right down into the stomach; a sickening, terrifying sensation, especially when it reached the breast. My shoulders were bruised, my back ached during the night... Infinitely worse than the pain was the sense of degradation” Lady Constance Lytton, who regularly escaped the horrendous ordeal of force feeding due to a health condition, set out to prove that it was only because she was of upper class status that her condition was taken into account ahead of force feeding. She was arrested in disguise as a working class woman ‘Jane Warton’, and, true to her suspicions, believing her to be working class, the prison authorities neither performed a full medical examination of her, nor took her heart condition into account.

Cat and Mouse Act In order to combat this inconvenience of having to release the women, the government introduced the infamous ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ in 1913. The Act’s official name, the ‘Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act’ highlights its major purpose: to facilitate the re-arrest of suffragettes after they had recuperated from their ‘illness’ from hunger-striking. They also moved to drop force-feeding within this Act, the policy being instead to wait until the hunger-striker under arrest was at a critical stage of weakness (not force feeding them as before), before releasing them to get back to health, and (they thought) re-arrest them afterwards, although this proved far harder to enact than the government had anticipated. The Act effectively meant that the government could shirk responsibility of any harm done to the suffragettes in jail, by hunger-strike for example, including death (the Home Secretary at the time is reported as having said, “let the prisoners die”).

The nickname ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ highlights the move around that time to sympathy for the suffragettes, who the public perceived as being cruelly played with by the government in the countless re-arrests and poor treatment of the women, much as a cat would torture a mouse. The Act was “a statutory memorial” of the government’s “lamentable treatment of women”, and it is credited with at least part of the Liberal party’s decline in popularity in the early 20th century. Militancy I have mostly covered militancy within the more extensive research into Emily Wilding Davison, including the various acts of militancy (bombings, arson and stone-throwing), although: a word on the first militant acts, of chaining themselves to railings. I was surprised to learn (although I feel I should have suspected) that, upon chaining themselves to railings of various public buildings, as they regularly did in some of their early acts of militancy, the suffragettes suffered sexual assault at the hands of men of the public and police.

Sylvia Pankhurst says of Black Friday also that many women were “subjected to ill-usage” and that “the cry went round: ‘Be careful; they are dragging women down the side streets!’ We knew this always meant greater ill-usage”. It should also be noted, that, alongside the more “violent” militancy (roughly post-1912), there were many large-scale rallies, two of the most important of which were the 1908 and 1913 rallies in Hyde Park. 250,000 people attended in 1908. Much has been made of the difference between public perception of female militants and male militants. The suffragettes were held to blame for men’s actions in assaulting them: “Women’s claims [to the right to vote] were justified and the action they wanted to take was perfectly reasonable; what was unjustified and unreasonable were the reactions of men (who often seized the opportunity to punch and kick and claw and also to sexually assault with impunity)... It is interesting that in criticisms of violence it is the WSPU women who are effectively blamed for men’s violence towards them”.

The women chaining themselves to railings were deemed “silly”, to which Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence replied, “doing something silly is the woman’s alternative to doing something cruel. The effect is the same. We use no violence because we can win freedom without it; because we have discovered an alternative”. It was also argued by many suffragettes, Sylvia included, that the punishment did not tend to fit the crime, “it was a scandal four of us should be serving five months in all for [breaking] one little £3 window; that the Government had had their pound of flesh, and far, far more, oh, far, far more.” Slashing the Rokeby Venus Mary Richardson entered the National Gallery in 1914 with a meat cleaver and slashed the famous painting known as the Rokeby Venus.

She said of her actions, “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history.” Black Friday On the 18th of November 1910, the Conciliation Bill was due to be brought before the House of Commons, which argued for extension of franchise to women. A ninth “Women’s Parliament” was assembling in Caxton Hall at the time, and Sylvia Pankhurst notes Asquith “left the House without [discussing leaving time for the Conciliation Bill before dissolution of Parliament]”. Around three hundred women headed to Parliament, where unfolded “scenes of unexampled violence”, including the sexual assaults I referenced above.

Sylvia Pankhurst reports that 115 women were arrested “on “Black Friday” as the day was afterwards named”, and two women died: Cecilia Haig “died in December, 1911, after a painful illness, arising from her injuries” and Henria Williams, who, “already suffering from a weak heart, did not recover from the treatment she received that night in the Square, and died on January 1st.” WWI – 1914 WWI saw the temporary winding-down of the suffrage movements, which Sylvia (having by this point been ousted from WSPU) notes as a quiet but rapid change of tack: “militancy was no more. The Suffragette of August 7th, 1914, contained an appeal from Christabel: ‘Women of the WSPU. We must protect our Union through everything... for the same of the human race... women must be free’. Next week the Suffragette failed to appear. Mrs.

Pankhurst issued a statement through the Press that militancy would be rendered ‘less effective’ by contrast with the greater violence of the war, that work for the vote on the lines of peaceful argument being, ‘as we know, futile’, the Union would suspend activities. Money and energy would thus be saved, and ‘an opportunity’ given to ‘recuperate after the tremendous strain and suffering of the past two years’.” She also notes that the NUWSS suffered greatly from the war, dividing its ranks into the majority (under Fawcett) who dropped their work for women’s suffrage to support the war effort, and the ‘Women’s Active Service Crops’ who formed the British section of the ‘Women’s International League’. WSPU, in the meantime, dropped nearly all of its suffrage work, focusing completely on the war, even changing the name of the Suffragette to Britannia. However, the WSPU made a resurgence in support of the National Register war work and compulsory national service for women, alongside Lloyd George.

The nationalist work of many of the suffrage groups during the war greatly helped their cause, and it was during the war that Asquith made his declaration of allegiance to enfranchising women (1916). Moves had already been made to include women’s suffrage in parliamentary bills before the declaration of armistice, and the WSPU were pivotal in lauding the benefits of votes for women coming “in war time. If it did, women would work with greater energy, enthusiasm and patriotism for the security of their native land”. Women gain the vote – 1918 The Representation of the People Act granted women over 30 the right to vote, as long as they were married to or a member of Local Government Register. It also extended men’s suffrage to the right for all men to vote over the age of 21, and abolished most property qualifications for men. Women gain full suffrage – 1928 Women were granted suffrage equal to men in 1928 under the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise Act) 1928. The age for women to vote was lowered to 21, and property qualifications reduced to the same as men, at this point barely notable.

Question: In what year did British women first get the vote?
Answer: 1918